Global Policy Forum

Global A-list Attack American Policies

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Daily Telegraph, Australia
February 6, 2002


They came to salute New York but stayed to lambaste America. "They" weren't the demonstrators outside the World Economic Forum but the participants inside, a global A-list of executives, government officials, princes, presidents, prelates and professors from 106 countries. American business and political leaders took heat for a long list of perceived sins: inequality between rich and poor, unilateralist policies, an over-reliance on force in the war against terrorism, and inattention to environment and health care.

French Foreign Minister Hubert Vedrine complained of US "indifference" toward its allies.

Malaysian Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad stated: "There's a feeling in Washington that anything that is not American cannot be right."

Indonesian lawyer Jusuf Wanandi wondered: "How can global governance evolve with one dominant power?"

South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu said: "I hope this country, which inspired so many of us, will be able to dream about a world in which we care and we share."

The forum ended on Monday evening with a warning from UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan that the world risked new terrorism and the collapse of the global economy if it failed to deal seriously with Third World poverty and disease. US leaders attending the forum, such as Secretary of State Colin Powell, nodded to the need to "fight poverty and hopelessness". But Mr Powell mostly used the occasion to announce the US would "go after terrorism wherever it threatened free men and women".

Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill defended Washington's refusal of emergency aid to Argentina, rather than let American "plumbers and carpenters pay for someone else's bad decisions." Peruvian Finance Minister Pedro Pablo Kuczynski snapped back that "in this era of globalization, for a group of leading countries to say, 'You're on your own, buster,' that's sending the wrong message." The forum began 31 years ago in the Swiss ski town of Davos as a cozy and private way for the world's business elite to consider mutual problems and make deals. Over the years, invitations to Davos became a coveted symbol of membership in a global in-group of the rich, powerful and influential – the people who run the world. In recent years, Davos organizers began inviting non-business delegates to talk about social as well as economic issues. This year's list included 40 union leaders, 120 heads of nongovernmental organizations and the rock star Bono of the group U2, who told one session that U.S. trade policies are "unfair and unacceptable."

Forum leaders moved this year's meeting from the Swiss Alps to New York City, ostensibly to show solidarity with the city in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center, the very symbols of the world economy. Another, less public reason was the Swiss government's irritation at the growing cost of providing security. New York put concrete barriers around the Waldorf-Astoria and surrounded the hotel with up to 4,000 police. But protest leaders admitted they wanted no fight with New York police, who have been considered heroes since Sept. 11. Seven thousand protesters marched Saturday but almost all demonstrations were peaceful.

Their message – that globalization is a powerful and untamed force, that it causes wealth and misery, that global corporations need rules and regulations and that the U.S. government fails to understand this-was carried into the forum by the official delegates themselves.

The Sept. 11 attacks gave the Third World the opportunity to argue that inequality and poverty can kill even the rich and powerful. With some 720 delegates from Third World countries, the forum resounded with that argument in many a session.

Other delegates from developed nations, including some Americans, agreed. The general theme was that, the Bush administration has focused on terrorism and the need to defeat it militarily, to the exclusion of all else. The rest of the world said it wants to keep talking about other issues. Poverty tops the list, but the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the need for strong global institutions and law also deserve attention, delegates said.

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton said that the United States is a target of protest "because of its lack of political and social goals alongside economic goals."

But her husband, former President Bill Clinton, speaking at a midnight "nightcap" session, bristled at suggestions that his administration was unilateralist.

"We were attacked for unilateralism and we were attacked when we didn't intervene," Clinton said. "I think we can't win for losing."


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FAIR USE NOTICE: This page contains copyrighted material the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. Global Policy Forum distributes this material without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. We believe this constitutes a fair use of any such copyrighted material as provided for in 17 U.S.C § 107. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond fair use, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.